different between irritate vs distress

English

Etymology

From Latin irr?t?tus, past participle of irr?t? (“excite, irritate, incite, stimulate”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /????te?t/

Verb

irritate (third-person singular simple present irritates, present participle irritating, simple past and past participle irritated)

1. (transitive) To provoke impatience, anger, or displeasure in.

   • Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.

2. (intransitive) To cause or induce displeasure or irritation.
3. (transitive) To induce pain in (all or part of a body or organism).
4. (transitive, obsolete, Scotland, law) To render null and void.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Archbishop Bramhall to this entry?)

Synonyms

• provoke
• rile

Antonyms

• placate
• please
• soothe

Related terms

Translations

See also

• exasperate
• peeve
• disturb

Italian

Adjective

irritate

1. feminine plural of irritato

Verb

irritate

1. second-person plural present of irritare
2. second-person plural imperative of irritare
3. feminine plural past participle of irritare

Anagrams

• arteriti, atterrii, irretita, ritirate, tiritera, triterai

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ir.ri??ta?.te/, [?r?i??t?ä?t??]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ir.ri?ta.te/, [ir?i?t???t??]

Verb

irr?t?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of irr?t?

References

• irritate in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• irritate in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

English

Etymology

The verb is from Middle English distressen, from Old French destrecier (“to restrain, constrain, put in straits, afflict, distress”); compare French détresse. Ultimately from Medieval Latin as if *districtiare, an assumed frequentative form of Latin distringere (“to pull asunder, stretch out”), from dis- (“apart”) + stringere (“to draw tight, strain”).

The noun is from Middle English distresse, from Old French destrece, ultimately also from Latin distringere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??st??s/
• Rhymes: -?s

Noun

distress (countable and uncountable, plural distresses)

1. (Cause of) discomfort.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:distress.
2. Serious danger.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:distress.
3. (medicine) An aversive state of stress to which a person cannot fully adapt.
4. (law) A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt.
5. (law) The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction.

   • If he were not paid, he would straight go and take a distress of goods and cattle.

   • The distress thus taken must be proportioned to the thing distrained for.

Derived terms

• distress signal

Antonyms

• (maladaptive stress): eustress

Related terms

• distrain
• district

Translations

Verb

distress (third-person singular simple present distresses, present participle distressing, simple past and past participle distressed)

1. To cause strain or anxiety to someone.

   Synonyms: anguish, harrow, trouble, vex, torment, tantalize, tantalise, martyr
2. (law) To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain.

   Synonym: distrain
3. To treat a new object to give it an appearance of age.

   Synonyms: age, antique, patinate

Translations

Further reading

• distress in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• distress in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• distress at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• disserts